“What is it?”
She pointed below the initials JW, 1847. There was more carving there, faint and worn almost to invisibility, but still readable once the dirt came away.
FOUNDATION STONE. FIRST STRUCTURE. RIVERSIDE.
Silas leaned closer, tracing the words with his finger.
“Foundation stone. First structure. Riverside.”
They looked at each other.
“Addie,” Silas said slowly, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“This building,” Adeline whispered, “might be the first structure built in Riverside.”
“The foundation of the town.”
“From 1847,” Silas added. “Before the railroad even came through this part of Vermont.”
“JW,” Adeline said. “Who was JW?”
They did not know yet.
But suddenly the laughter of the town mattered less. Because if Adeline was right, if this tiny shack was historically significant, then they had not bought junk for three dollars.
They had bought a piece of history.
And history, as they were about to discover, was priceless.
That night Adeline and Silas slept in the shack for the first time. They brought in their few belongings from the Honda—sleeping bags, a lantern, a cooler with what little food they had left.
The space was so small their sleeping bags touched when laid side by side, covering most of the floor. But it was shelter. Real shelter, with walls and a roof, and it was theirs.
Adeline lay awake for a long time, using the dim light from her phone to look at the carved words on the wall.
Foundation stone. First structure. Riverside.
“Can’t sleep?” Silas asked softly beside her.
“Thinking.”
“About JW?”
“Yes. Tomorrow I want to go to town hall and look at the records. I want to find out who he was.”
“Good idea,” Silas said. Then after a pause: “But Addie, even if this building is historically interesting, does that help us? We still have no money. No food. No nothing.”
“I know. But knowledge is something. And right now, it’s all we have to work with.”
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